Frequently Asked Questions

First you want to make sure the “gatekeepers” aren’t actually the decision makers. What we discovered is that the office staff typically can override where the patients are being sent in many cases. So it’s actually good to network directly with them.

Try sending a mailing piece every single month to the referral sources in your area.

The first thing that you do is you go through your entire patient list and you look for the companies that are great to work with. The ones that love conservative care and are consumers of conservative care. Once you start to create that list, ask what do those people have in common?
If it’s an insurer, maybe they work at the same place. Once you find this common thread, you think of ways to market directly to these people.

The first step is to have the new do nothing more than watch what the experienced competent person is doing. And as their competency and confidence increases, they can start taking on a workload.

Here are six ways that we found across the therapists that we work with that improve patient compliance and reduce cancellation rate.

1. Have a standardized format for evals.
2. Schedule the full plan of care – all visits – during the first eval.
3. Test, treat, and re-test at every visit.
4. Explain the three phases of healing.
5. Send an appointment reminder the day before the visit.
6. Have everyone ask “When do we see you next?”

For most of us, when we’re opening our first location, getting people in the door and on the schedule is the very first priority. So, marketing is where you want to begin if you have a brand new start up business.

The Physical Therapy industry average spent on Marketing is 1.2% to 1.8% of total revenue. Unfortunately much of this is actually spent on debt, bad services or in the wrong places. Best practices are to spend 10% of your total revenue on marketing your PT Practice.

Our PT patients treat for 39.5 hours a week with 30 minutes of Admin work per week in a salaried setting. We also have a weekly team meeting. Many Physical Therapists not only have a full time 40-45 hour a week profession but also moonlight with home help or at sports clinics, etc. This can boost a PT’s salary and hourly compensation.

A Physical Therapist sees 1 to 2 patients per hour. This has changed dramatically where years ago a PT was able to see 3 to 4 patients per hour. Changes and expectations in the marketplace and medical billing have led to this.

There is usually a range but the averages are $30 to $35 an hour in a salaried setting. Of course a benefits package can add to this. Outpatient settings can also increase hourly wages.